


Dear Peggy

by Gemmiel



Series: Holding On [5]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Guilt, M/M, bj/hawkeye, preslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 15:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3901216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gemmiel/pseuds/Gemmiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>BJ struggles with his feelings for Hawkeye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Peggy

**Author's Note:**

> Another small addition to this series. BJ is such a big family man that I can't imagine him kissing Hawkeye without an awful lot of soul-searching afterward.

Dear Peggy,

I've lived in this sea of olive-drab tents called the MASH 4077th for a little over three weeks now. Every day I wish I could come home. Every day it gets harder to believe that my old life was real, that there really is such a place as Mill Valley, or a little white house with a woman who loves me and a baby who lights up the room with her smile when she sees me. It's hard not to think this is the only reality there is, a reality of bombs falling and bullets whining and boys who are much too young to be here, torn to pieces by shrapnel and far beyond any hope of saving.

The truth that I can't confess to you is that only thing that's getting me through this is Hawkeye. I know I've told you about him before. I probably tell you about him too much, actually, but the thing is, his presence fills the Swamp. Fills this camp, really. His name is actually Benjamin Franklin Pierce, but that sounds a bit like a stooped old man with glasses and a cane, doesn't it? Hawkeye's the furthest thing from that, although his eyes do seem awfully old in such a young face. He's been here a year, and it shows. He's tired, Peg, so tired. And yet he's ~~beautful~~

~~brave~~

the best man I've ever known.

Here's the thing about Hawkeye, Peggy-- he doesn't quit. He doesn't ever quit. When the wounded just seem to keep coming and coming, he somehow stays at the top of his game in the OR. I've never seen anything like it. He is a competent surgeon, a very good surgeon, in fact, but what makes him truly special is his refusal to ever give up. I've seen him bring more than one boy back from the dead. I've seen him work steadily for twenty-four hours without showing any signs of fatigue. 

And although he claims to be a coward, he's got amazing courage when he has to. The camp still talks about the time they were pinned down by a sniper for more than a day. The sniper was eventually shot and injured by one of our helicopters, and raised a white flag. Hawkeye was apparently the only one who had the guts to walk out of the compound and go check on the guy. He risked his life to save someone who'd been shooting at him for twenty-four hours. That's our Hawkeye, Peggy.

He also keeps up morale-- for me, for everybody. I think I already told you about his silly idea to break a world record by squeezing twenty people into a Jeep. Silly, but effective. I heard so much laughter that day. He brings light to this place-- the Swamp, the camp, to Korea. He brings light to _me_.

I admire him, Peggy. I admire him so much-- maybe a little too much, really. The thing is-- and I know I can't expect you to understand this, because you're not here and you can't possibly understand what it's like-- the thing is that he's all that's holding me together. Every day I feel like I'm falling apart, unraveling, over and over again, and every time he comes along and glues me back together.

I wonder if I would have felt this way about him if I'd met him at home. Maybe we wouldn't have even become friends. Maybe in the normalcy of civilian life, he just would have struck me as irritating or childish or crazy. 

Or maybe-- maybe he would have meant this much to me no matter where I'd met him.

See, that's the thing, isn't it? I never thought of another man that way before, like he could be something more than a friend to me. It was never even an option for me. I never realized I had a choice, beyond a wife and kids and a nice little house. Maybe I never did have a choice. Maybe I never will, not really. Because no matter my feelings, I know this is dangerous. If our tentmate Frank even found this letter... well, it could ruin my life. And I love my life, Peggy. I love you. I really do. And I love our baby, and our house, the life we've built together.

But that life seems so very far away now. My life now consists of inedible food, ripped and ruined bodies, and the perpetual fear that someone will shoot me or drop a bomb on my head. I sleep on a cot that isn't even long enough for me to stretch out on; I live in a tent that's infested with snakes and bugs and other things I'd rather not think about too closely; I eat food that I wouldn't feed to a dog. I work incredibly long hours, but when I try to sleep I can't. Too much is lurking in the darkness.

I'm sure eventually I'll adjust to a certain extent, but right now I feel like I'm existing in a perpetual state of terrified, exhausted starvation. And I can't even tell you about it, not really. You wouldn't understand. You wouldn't believe how bad it is. I wouldn't have believed it myself, till I got here and began to live it.

But in the midst of all this misery-- there's Hawkeye.

He's all I've got to hang on to, Peggy. And I know that wouldn't make sense to you, that you'd think I should be hanging onto you and Erin. And I am trying. I'm trying so hard.

But you're so far away, and he's right here, and ~~yesterday I kissed him~~

he's just become so important to me. I can't explain it, not really. And I know I shouldn't allow myself to be drawn to him this way, that's it's wrong, and unfair to you, but he's so

~~beautiful~~

kind and decent, down deep. He acts like a class clown, jokes and pranks and all. And yet beneath the Groucho Marx routines and the terrible puns, he has a sort of solidity I've never encountered in anyone before. ~~And I want to kiss him again.~~

But I've made up my mind, Peggy. I won't do anything I shouldn't. I can't let this go any further. It's not fair to Hawkeye to-- to lead him on that way. Even though I'm not sure I'm the one doing the leading. Not that I'm blaming him for this, either; it's just something that happened somehow. It feels like something bigger than both of us pulled us together, something so huge and powerful I don't even know how to fight it.

But it can't happen any more. I know that. You deserve better. Hawkeye deserves better. And what I want... well, it just doesn't matter that much.

So I won't let this happen again, Peggy. I won't.

No matter how much I want it.

~~No matter how much I want him.~~

(Letter balled up and tossed into stove to burn)


End file.
